Further Associates of Sherlock Holmes Page 19

  As soon as the carriage had stopped I climbed out before the driver had time to dismount.

  The front door opened, and I saw impressive white marbled archways, and a notable staircase that dominated the centre of the hallway of the house. The driver removed my bags from the back of the carriage and then led me up the stairs towards a waiting butler and, I presumed by her attire, the housekeeper.

  Introductions were made. The butler was Anders, and the lady beside him Mrs Anders.

  “Miss Ballentine is waiting for you in the drawing room, but first you are to go and see Mr Richmond,” Anders said.

  “Who is Mr Richmond?” I asked.

  “Miss Ballentine’s fiancé,” Mrs Anders explained. “The patient.”

  “Ah. Then I will need my—” I turned and saw Samuel holding my medical bag out to me. I found his anticipation of my request quite disconcerting but took hold of the case nonetheless and turned to follow Mrs Anders up the stairs.

  But for a sliver of light filtering through the drawn curtains, the room I was led to was in complete darkness.

  “I will have to light the lamp,” Mrs Anders said.

  “Of course… or I shall not be able to see the patient…” I mumbled.

  “Is that all right, Mr Richmond? Will you cover your face?” Mrs Anders continued.

  There was a groan from the bed in the centre of the room. A rustle of sheets, and Mrs Anders struck a match and lit an oil lamp that stood on a dresser by the door.

  “He cannot bear any light,” Mrs Anders explained. “This is the nearest that we can bring the lamp.”

  “But I must be able to see in order to examine him properly…” I said.

  “I can creep closer once he becomes a little more accustomed to it,” Mrs Anders said. “But you’ll see…”

  I approached the bed, stumbling against a chair that I couldn’t see in the gloom, and then Mrs Anders turned the lamplight upwards.

  The patient groaned in the bed, pulling the covers up and over his face even as I drew near.

  “Mr Richmond?” I said. “I’m Dr Watson. I’m here to help you.”

  Richmond groaned again. It was the sound of an aged and dying man who could barely articulate his pain and suffering.

  I reached for the covers and pulled them back. Richmond was too weak to fight me; although he tried to hold onto the material, it slipped easily from his frail fingers and I came face to face with the reality of his affliction for the first time.

  “Good lord,” I gasped, as I couldn’t hold in my shock at the sight of the man.

  His skin was deathly white, and as the light from the lamp hit him, his flesh seemed to react to it. It blackened and began to char with a sizzling sound.

  “Pull the light back for the love of God!” cried Richmond.

  Mrs Anders responded and turned the flame down once more. My eyes had adjusted enough for me to still be able to just make out the other peculiarities in Richmond’s state, and as the light dimmed further it became even more apparent that Richmond’s eyes were flawed. Whatever colour the irises had once been was now bleached out. The man’s eyes were as white as his flesh and they glowed somewhat in the gloom, oddly luminous.

  I didn’t dare bring the light closer now for fear of injuring him further but I leaned in and touched his skin. It was rough, scarred: it was the flesh of a victim severely burnt.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  Richmond shook his head as though his previous outburst was all that he had left in him, and now he could no longer speak.

  “Can you see at all?” I asked.

  Richmond nodded. “A little. If it’s dark…” he gasped. “The light… it… it…”

  “Turn the lamp off, Mrs Anders,” I said.

  Mrs Anders complied, and I took the seat beside the bed of my patient and waited for my own vision to adjust. I could make out Richmond’s shape in the bed, could hear his laboured breathing. I fumbled in my medical bag and extracted my stethoscope. I explained myself to Richmond, so as not to frighten him, and he allowed me to press the instrument against his chest.

  I listened to the man’s heartbeat for a moment and then looked into those peculiar eyes. I tilted his head so that I could observe the way the lenses captured light and reflected it, in much the same way that a cat’s eyes did. But these were no cat’s eyes. This was the symptom of some rare and frightening disorder.

  “Are you in much pain?” I asked, but I knew the answer could only be yes and so I prescribed a dose of laudanum to help Richmond sleep.

  “I must speak to Miss Ballentine,” I said to Mrs Anders as we left the now resting patient.

  “She’s expecting you,” the housekeeper replied, and I followed her back down the stairs and into the drawing room.

  Hope Ballentine sat upright and stiff on a Chinese-style sofa. I was struck by her incredible handsomeness and paused in the doorway. When she looked at me it was as though I was released from some form of hypnosis. Miss Ballentine was ethereal. Like a muse, or a nymph, caught in a moment of complete reflection, as if by a pond and not in a place as ordinary as a drawing room.

  “Dr Watson. It is good to see you,” she said, and then she indicated a chair near hers and I sat down beside her. “You must be thirsty. The maid has just brought in this fresh pot of tea.”

  “Thank you,” I said, though I felt in need of something far stronger after my initial examination of Richmond. I had seen many things during my investigations with Holmes, but this one had rattled me. Maybe because Holmes and his ever-present confidence were absent.

  I took the proffered teacup and tried to hide the trembling of my hands.

  “So, tell me what is going on here,” I said, placing the cup back down on the tray after a few slow sips.

  “Well that is why I’ve called you in,” said a familiar voice behind me. “I wanted to know what you would make of this from a medical viewpoint.”

  I turned to find none other than Holmes standing in the doorway.

  “Good heavens, man!” I said. “You gave me a turn!”

  I stood and shook his hand then. I was glad to see him despite my surprise.

  Holmes took a seat on a sofa some distance from me and Miss Ballentine, and I waited patiently as the lady composed herself enough to explain what symptoms had first manifested themselves in the patient.

  However, I found it difficult to concentrate on Miss Ballentine, as beautiful as she was, because, despite my pleasure at seeing him, I was somewhat irritated by Holmes’s appearance. And his declaration that he had sent for me, and not she, brought about a feeling of some disappointment: I had not been sent for merely for my own abilities.

  “Come now, Watson,” Holmes said and I turned to him, noting how comfortably he sat in the drawing room, as if the house were his home from home. This clearly indicated to me, knowing Holmes as I did, that he had in fact been in the Ballentine residence for some time, perhaps for all of the absence that he had conveyed to me was due to a family crisis.

  Now he placed his long, musical fingers like a church steeple under his chin, and he watched me closely.

  I felt a pang of guilt and wondered if he did indeed see the slight resentment I was harbouring. Holmes wasn’t always the most tactful of people, nor did he care much for the emotions of others if they impaired his ability to work effectively on a case, and so I knew my antipathy would have to remain unacknowledged for the time being.

  “Come now, Watson,” he said again. I blinked. Then I turned my attention back to the beautiful Miss Ballentine and began to question her at length.

  “My parents went the same way. The colourless eyes, the skin so sensitive to light that it burned and scarred,” she said. “But it was diagnosed as some sickness of age…”

  “Which quack diagnosed that?” I asked, and then remembered myself. “Forgive me. But there is no illness of age that I have ever witnessed to cause such… deterioration as this. Age often equals frailty, but not some sudden aversi
on or inability to tolerate light.”

  I looked to Holmes for some endorsement of my words, but he appeared to be in his own thoughts. I noted how he tapped his fingers on the edge of the seat as though he were listening to his favourite opera. Was he perhaps composing something inside that magnificent mind of his, even as I struggled to make sense of a medical matter?

  “I thought this myself,” said Miss Ballentine. “That’s why I invited Mr Holmes here in the first instance. But the day after he arrived, Jeremy fell with the same affliction.”

  “What do you think this is, Holmes?” I asked, growing impatient with his silence, even while I knew that deep down his genius was cooking something up.

  “My dear Watson, I’m more intrigued to know what you think,” he said. “I’m not a medical man. This is a medical matter.”

  I frowned. So that was how it was. Holmes was holding all of the cards close to his chest. Or perhaps, and I preferred to believe this, he really did need my input after all.

  “All right,” I said. “Your note told me that your father received a diamond? A blue diamond?”

  “That’s correct,” said Miss Ballentine. “Some months ago from my uncle who had recently passed on. My father’s brother. It was peculiar because Father hadn’t heard from him for years and had already thought him long gone. Then an Indian servant arrived one day, carrying the package, and we learnt that Uncle John had been living in India all the time. The servant told us that he had left him strict instructions to bring the jewel to my father. I remember they spent a long time in Father’s office, and then the servant just left.”

  “What happened then?” I asked.

  Holmes was examining his nails as though he had heard this story so many times that it bored him.

  “Father called Mother in, he showed her what was in the box and then he stowed it in the safe. A short time later he was just as Jeremy… Mr Richmond… is now. It wasn’t long before he…”

  Miss Ballentine halted, tears in her eyes, and I pulled out my handkerchief and held it out to the lady. She took it gratefully and dabbed at her eyes until she was composed again.

  “Then you say your mother took ill…” I coaxed.

  Miss Ballentine nodded. “After the reading of the will she took me into Father’s study and opened the safe. Then she pulled a box from there. When she opened it I saw the diamond for the first time. It was like… an eye. If that doesn’t sound too strange. A blue iris. Only large. As large as my palm.

  “Mother took the diamond out of the box and held it, but I was too in awe to touch it. ‘It’s not in the will,’ she told me. ‘Your father had no time to change it before his sickness, and so I’m going to keep it to pass down to you. You are, after all, the only remaining heir of this family.’

  “I forgot about the diamond as we continued to grieve, and then when Mother became sick it was the last thing on my mind.”

  “That was some time ago?” I asked.

  “Two months. And Mr Holmes came here a few weeks ago.”

  Ah! Just as I had suspected: Holmes had been there all the time.

  “Yes,” she paused. “Mrs Anders reminded me that the servants were due payment and so I went into the safe to fetch out the yearly salary book and the money to give her to pay everyone. That’s when I saw the box and recalled what Mother had said about the diamond. It all seemed so peculiar that I had completely forgotten about it. I didn’t know what to think. So I sat at the desk merely looking at it.

  “A while later, Jeremy arrived. We had planned to go for a drive to the seaside and I had forgotten that also. But he was quite used to me being like that since my parents died and so he came to find me in the study. I had the diamond box on the table, and Jeremy saw it. I saw no reason to keep the secret from my fiancé and so I let him look at it. That was the second time I saw the diamond,” Miss Ballentine halted as though this realisation was somehow important.

  “And Mr Richmond took the diamond out of the box?” I asked.

  “No. Not then. But later when we returned to the house after our day out he asked if he could see it again. This time he examined it closely.”

  “So, why did seeing the diamond again make you suspicious? Why did you send for Holmes?”

  Holmes shifted in his seat and reached over to pour himself a cup of tea.

  “Oh dear,” said Miss Ballentine. “I really ought to get the pot refreshed.”

  “No need,” said Holmes. Then he stood and rang the servants’ bell himself, confirming his comfort in the house once more.

  “You see, when Jeremy opened the case and removed the diamond a piece of paper fell out. It was written in a foreign language. Jeremy, fortunately, found someone to translate it and we discovered that it was Hindi,” Miss Ballentine continued.

  “Of course it was!” said Holmes. “And here is the tea! Come in, Mrs Anders.”

  Mrs Anders was indeed on the other side of the door holding a fresh tray. Holmes held the door open and the housekeeper came inside and placed the new tray down on the table, and then collected the old one.

  “So what do you know, Holmes?” I asked, impatient to hear his prognosis.

  Holmes remained quiet. He waited for Mrs Anders to leave, before closing the door and taking his seat again. Now with a fresh cup of tea and a plate of sandwiches, Holmes behaved as though he was alone in the room as he worked his way through two cucumber sandwiches.

  I noted Miss Ballentine’s distress and returned my attention to her after frowning once more at Holmes. His behaviour was more confusing than usual.

  “So… erm… what did the paper say?”

  “It was a warning,” Miss Ballentine said, “of a curse.”

  “It seems,” Holmes interjected, “that Miss Ballentine’s uncle was a thief. Or knew one.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” I asked.

  “The diamond was stolen. From a religious artefact. It was once known as the Eye of Shiva,” Holmes said. “This very artefact is currently in the British Museum – sans its eye.” He indicated a place on his forehead. “The third eye.”

  “Mr Holmes is right. My mother told me that my uncle’s servant, Rani, was incredibly circumspect when he was questioned about the origins of the diamond. He told them that my uncle won it in a poker game. However he warned against ‘holding’ it for too long. I thought that meant owning it. But maybe it meant…” Miss Ballentine said. “I can only assume, as Jeremy and my mother held the diamond, that he meant not to touch it.”

  “So, the common factor is the diamond,” I said, trying to keep my mind focused on the problem at hand.

  “Yes,” said Miss Ballentine.

  “Mmmm. What do you think, Watson?” asked Holmes.

  “Well. I suppose I should take a look at it. Wearing my gloves of course,” I said.

  Miss Ballentine led us to the study. Wearing outdoor gloves, she took the suspect box from the safe and placed it on the desk. Then she stepped back, as though she were afraid of the contents.

  I pulled on my own leather gloves and lifted the box, turning it over in my hands. I noted a smear of white and smelt a distinct scent on the contents.

  I placed the case back down on the desk and opened the top, being careful not to lean over it. A burst of white powder emitted into the air.

  “Step back,” Holmes warned. Then he threw his jacket over the case.

  “What on earth was that?” asked Miss Ballentine.

  “A lucky escape for Watson!” Holmes said. “And how curious that this did not happen when you showed the diamond to me. Watson, did you recognise that odour?”

  “Yes, Holmes. It was lime sulphur, and that would explain the damage to your fiancé’s eyes and skin. It is highly corrosive. But how was this possible?”

  I held Holmes’s jacket above the case, as he attempted to open it again. This time, no sulphur was released from the box, and I was able to remove the diamond from the case. I noted that it was now smeared with the white powder. Crystallised l
ime was covering the stone, and this could have certainly found its poisonous way onto the skin of anyone handling it with unprotected hands.

  “How intriguing,” said Holmes, examining the box. “It’s an occasional emission. Guaranteed to catch the owner unawares at some time or other. See here, Watson, there is a small clockwork mechanism that winds itself back up as the case is opened and closed. At full wind this coil releases. Then the powder bursts out through these small holes.”

  “The lime would act as an irritant in this form,” I said, indicating the debris on the diamond, “though wouldn’t necessarily blind you without direct exposure – that would have to happen with the initial burst. Even so, it certainly wouldn’t kill you.”

  “Then what did kill my parents? And why is Jeremy so sick? I didn’t see him sprayed with that concoction,” Miss Ballentine said. “So how…?”

  “We must ask him,” said Holmes. “For certainly he entered your study, went into your safe and examined the diamond when you weren’t present.”

  Miss Ballentine was clearly overcome by Holmes’s words. The implications that her fiancé may have been planning to rob her of the diamond hung in the air along with the smell of lime sulphur.

  “One thing is for certain,” I said. “The diamond must be washed and this container destroyed. Or a maiming may occur again.”

  I went to check on my patient and found Richmond sitting up in bed in the dark.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “Sleep helped.” He was groggy but better on the laudanum than without it and so I gave him another dose.

  As he began to drift off to sleep I asked him a few questions about the diamond, knowing that it would be difficult for him to lie to me in his drugged state.

  “I just wanted to see it again…” he murmured.

  Back downstairs I reassured Miss Ballentine that her fiancé was not a thief but had been merely fascinated by the diamond.